We Speak Geek

One of the Video Game Writers for PG and a former member of UC Berkeley A Cappella group Noteworthy. I'm big on geek culture, especially video games, comics, and manga and I'm usually a pretty nice guy as long as you stay on my good side. I'm a big believer in the idea of video games as a powerful storytelling medium and love a good game with a strong, character-driven narrative.
Xbox Live Gamertag: Fullmetal XZ | PSN ID: FullmetalX | Steam: DestroyerFullmetalX

At least year’s PAX, we here at Pixelated Geek got the opportunity to try out a few indie games submitted for Microsoft’s Dream.Build.Play competition and were pretty amazed at the games that were submitted. Regrettably, we didn’t get the opportunity to try out the entries for this year. However, last week, Microsoft announced the winners of this year’s competition.

“We are continually amazed at the fantastic work and game quality submitted by Dream.Build.Play contestants,” said Stephanie Reimann, Microsoft Developer Outreach and Developer Platform Integration. “Xbox LIVE has made its mark as the place to be for independent developers and the games are top quality and fun to play. We look forward to continuing to nurture the amazing independent talent that comes to light through this competition.”

For the full press release, go past the break.

Microsoft Announces Dream.Build.Play 2010 Winners

Independent Game Developers Take Home Share of more than $100,000

Today Microsoft Corp. revealed the winners of its 2010 Dream.Build.Play Challenge, which encourages independent and hobbyist game developers to create fun and innovative video games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. Four winners received a share of $75,000 in cash prizes and could have the opportunity to publish their games on Xbox LIVE Arcade. This year’s global Dream.Build.Play Challenge attracted more than 350 game submissions from more than 110 countries. Those who participated in the contest, and are located in a supported region, have the opportunity to publish their games on Xbox LIVE Indie Games.

Dream.Build.Play Final Four:

Nicolas Daures of France earned the grand prize of $40,000 for “Lumi,” a 2-D action and puzzle game.

Nenin Ananbanchachai from the Thailand took home second place and $20,000 for a 2.5-D, run and gun side-scroller game, “A.R.E.S.”

Yoichi Hayashi from Japan received third place and $10,000 for a forced rail shooter “Prismatic Solid.”

Norman and Steven Hunt from the United Kingdom received fourth place and $5,000 for the twin stick shooter “Beat Hazard.”

“We are continually amazed at the fantastic work and game quality submitted by Dream.Build.Play contestants,” said Stephanie Reimann, Microsoft Developer Outreach and Developer Platform Integration. “Xbox LIVE has made its mark as the place to be for independent developers and the games are top quality and fun to play. We look forward to continuing to nurture the amazing independent talent that comes to light through this competition.”

New this year, Dream.Build.Play partnered with Old Spice to invite developers to take the Old Spice Challenge. Participants were asked to create a fun, innovative and polished game that captures the spirit of the Old Spice brand for the chance to win a $60,000 Grand Prize and a chance for five finalists to be published on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

After a month of community voting, Old Spice announced today that the action-packed adventure game “Newton vs. The Horde” was voted as winner of the Old Spice Challenge and its development team, led by Graham Stewart, will be awarded $60,000. To celebrate the win, Old Spice is giving away free game codes to the first 8,000 people who visit the Old Spice page on Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

The games for both contests were created using XNA Game Studio 3.1, which enables game developers to easily create video games for Xbox 360, Windows, and Zune digital media players by using optimized cross-platform gaming libraries based on the .NET Framework in the C# programming language.

More information about the Dream.Build.Play contest and winners, including screenshots and videos, can be found on the Dream.Build.Play press site.